Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
Foster dramatizes these concerns in her epistolary novel The Coquette (1797),
one of the rst epistolary novels published in America. It is based on the life of
Elizabeth Whitman (1752–1788), the daughter of the Reverend Elnathan Whitman
(1708–1776) and a second cousin by marriage of Foster. Whitman’s death gained
great attention, for she died while using an assumed name as she waited at an inn
for her presumed husband. She had no husband, and she died due to complications
from giving birth to a stillborn child. Once she was identied as a relative of several
well-known ministers, her story became a scandal about a woman’s fall from grace.
Foster’s version of this story considers a woman’s fall from grace, humiliation,
repentance, and reassertion of rectitude, and in the process, gains sympathy for
her. The Coquette displays women’s limited options and limited choices within
American society. Also concerned with women’s choices, Foster’s novel The
Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils (1798) considers
women’s education, what and how they should be taught, and how education
should prepare women for their lives outside of school.
3.16.1 From The Coquette: Or; the History of Eliza Wharton
(1797)
Letter I
TO MISS LUCY FREEMAN.
NEW HAVEN
An unusual sensation possesses my breast—a sensation which I once thought
could never pervade it on any occasion whatever. It is pleasure, pleasure, my dear
Lucy, on leaving my paternal roof. Could you have believed that the darling child of
an indulgent and dearly-beloved mother would feel a gleam of joy at leaving her?
But so it is. The melancholy, the gloom, the condolence which surrounded me for
a month after the death of Mr. Haly had depressed my spirits, and palled every
enjoyment of life. Mr. Haly was a man of worth—a man of real and substantial
merit. He is, therefore, deeply and justly regretted by his friends. He was chosen
to be a future guardian and companion for me, and was, therefore, beloved by
mine. As their choice, as a good man, and a faithful friend, I esteemed him; but
no one acquainted with the disparity of our tempers and dispositions, our views
and designs, can suppose my heart much engaged in the alliance. Both nature and
education had instilled into my mind an implicit obedience to the will and desires
of my parents. To them, of course, I sacriced my fancy in this aair, determined
that my reason should concur with theirs, and on that to risk my future happiness.
I was the more encouraged, as I saw, from our rst acquaintance, his declining
health, and expected that the event would prove as it has. Think not, however,
that I rejoice in his death. No; far be it from me; for though I believe that I never
felt the passion of love for Mr. Haly, yet a habit of conversing with him, of hearing
daily the most virtuous, tender, and aectionate sentiments from his lips, inspired
emotions of the sincerest friendship and esteem.
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